Tuesday, December 28, 2010

After the Chicago Sun-Times published an unfounded report that future Kentucky Wildcat Anthony Davis' family requested a six-figure payday for his commitment, Davis was forced to keep a tight circle.

Davis learned the hard way that college basketball recruiting is often a dirty business that is filled with corruption, lies and pain.

In the aftermath of the damaging allegations directed at his family, Davis has learned that "you really can’t trust no one on the recruiting scene."

Here is an excerpt about Davis' new reality from Slamonline.com:

Sad but true: Right now, a casual college basketball fan is more likely to know Davis’ name because of a single, unfounded claim about his recruitment in a Chicago newspaper than because of his game. And this is no average prep baller we’re talking about, but a 6-10, 200-pounder considered the top power forward in the Class of ’11. The aforementioned story ran in August, about a week before Davis made his college choice official; the future Kentucky Wildcat could do nothing more than try to ignore the claims and enjoy his moment. It couldn’t have been easy.

“As a rookie to the recruiting game, it just kind of shocked us that someone would do that,” Davis says of the anonymous allegations that his family demanded a six-digit payoff for his commitment. “We knew it wasn’t true, so it didn’t really un-focus me. I just learned that you really can’t trust no one on the recruiting scene. You’ve just got to keep a tight circle.”

Davis figures he’s done that, relying on his family to deflect the negativity, and expanding his circle only as far as friends in the game who can relate to the process. In that, he’s got good company, particularly with a trio of his future UK teammates, all of whom will likely be McDonald’s All-Americans at season’s end. “I talked to Michael Gilchrist a lot, and when I realized Marquis Teague and Kyle Wiltjer were coming too, that was just a bonus,” Davis says of the months leading up to his decision.